Fourth Conversation | Animal Experimentation, Dual Use, Genome Editing, Human Experimentation: Where Are the Red Lines?

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This conversation will explore questions of research ethics through several concrete examples.

Research ethics concerns both the ethical questions that arise within the research process itself and the consequences of applying research findings. Animal experimentation, for instance, requires weighing animal welfare against potential benefits to human beings. Genome editing raises questions about how certain technologies may transform our understanding of what it means to be human.

Medical research would be inconceivable without experiments involving human participants. Precisely for that reason, questions concerning their ethical justification and appropriateness are unavoidable.

The problem of dual use—the potential military application of research findings—has also acquired considerable geopolitical significance. It, too, confronts LMU with questions requiring careful ethical judgment and the balancing of competing considerations.